Kitchen cupboard handles - thoughts?

Our build is progressing nicely and a few months ago we met with our cabinet makers to establish the quote and have preliminary drawings produced.

Anyhow we are meeting with the cabinet maker a final time this weekend to sign off on everything and there is one thing that is niggling me and was hoping that I could get some other opinions.

Bit of background - kitchen cupboards are going to be a high gloss white laminate, with 'Astral' 20mm smart stone benchtops and a 1.4m square island bench. Featured cupboards will have a brushed aluminium bezel and frosted glass inserts. Freestanding stainless steel oven, french door fridge and a glass splashback (copper colour similar to the tile in my build thread). A few things will be changed e.g win racks above microwave space. Drawing is below



My wife is really keen on having cupboard doors without handles (e.g a grip machined into the top/bottom recess of the door instead) to give the kitchen a 'flush' clean look. She also thinks that it will be child friendly (e.g. not bumping heads on sharp pointy handles)

I am against it, as I think it out of the norm and possibly will look 'unfinished' by not having handles.

Anyone have experience with a 'handleless' kitchen, or thoughts on the matter. I probably won't win this one but some counter arguments would be helpful.

I have a mix - handles on the drawers but no handles on the overhead cabinets. This is the latest picture, hope it helps.
http://i1235.photobucket.com/albums/ff435/RuthnPhil/P1040507.jpg

Hi, Mine is the same as PS. Handles on the bottom and not on the overheads. The cabinets on the top hang slightly lower so no handles necessary. I really like it.

Hi, what colour is this bench top?

I have no handles on my overhead cabinets and love it. They hang over the bottom of the cupboard by a few mm and are really easy to open. It is great in a small kitchen because it is not so busy. We have done the same in the new place.

Nice design, especially the three draws to the microwave recess. I wish I had done that.

Benchtop is Essastone New Chinchilla

We too are having white gloss cupboards and out of practicality have decided to go with handles on both upper and lower doors.
We road tested the ones in the cabinetmakers with an overhang and also with the magnetic push.
We didn't like either, as no matter how much you try, in the end you lapse and end up putting fingermarks on the doors.

BUT having said that the streamlined look of no handles wins the aesthetics hands down!

What sort of laminate doors?? Not many laminate doors are able to have a "grip machined into the edge"

Or are you talking about shark nose where the back of the door is cut on 45degress and left short at the front for the finger grip.

Hi

We have gloss white cupboards and we went with the aluminum strip handle that runs along the top (or bottom of overhead cupboards). We are very happy with this. It still has a modern, clean line nd voids finger marks on the cupboards.

not the best photo, but it is one I happen to have on my iPad.

My father-in-law has glossy cupboards and traditional handles and there are always marks on the doors where your hand goes through the handle.

Paul

That looks lovely Paul, what colour is your benchtop?

Thanks.

The benches are Caesarstone Urban.

Paul

I don't think handleless is out of the norm at all. Pretty common and trendy I thought? I wanted it for our new kitchen but my DH didn't like the look and also the cabinet maker was all for handles, so we went with handles! Our handles should look like the ones in PS4314's pic.

Cheers Paul, I have been tossing up about using a red splashback with that colour benchtop, your photo was really helpful. Thankyou

I love the look of no handles but for practical reasons, I want handles. To hang the hand towel, the tea towels, etc. Otherwise, need to think of where to hang these things.

Like PPs suggestion of handles below, nothing above.